10) Apocalypse Now (1979)
Francis Ford Coppola famously had to continually improvise during filming for his 1979 Vietnam War epic, Apocalypse Now. There were enormous budget problems, cast members were frequently ill, and when storms swept away entire sets half way through filming, crews were left scouting for new locations and the builders rapidly constructing new sets under serious time constraints.
But even more significantly, Coppola was also struggling for a way with which to open the film. This is hard to believe, given the power of the overlaying between the fires of the war and Captain Benjamin Willard’s own private hell, and that perfect segue between the helicopter blades and the ceiling fan. All set to the soundtrack of The Door’s “The End,” it is one of the most perfect examples of how to blend wider context with character introduction in cinematic history.
What is even harder to believe, however, is exactly how Coppola finally found his vision for this sequence. There is no delicate or thoughtful way to say this, so we’ll go with getting straight to the point: He got it out of a bin.
Yes – the opening sequence to Apocalypse Now, a movie universally accepted as one of the best films ever made, a film that received 30 awards nominations and won 11 of them – was devised after its director, “desperate and drunk” one night, rummaged around in the garbage barrels of film trim and pulled out a piece that, when he put it on the Moviola, showed nothing but smoke, and the occasional passing helicopter. Clearly delighted with this new method of improvisation, Coppola descended upon another bin, and this time produced a bit of trim that bore the words: ‘The End; Doors Music.’ It is genuinely difficult to decide whether this story is brilliant – or just plain upsetting.
On a much more serious note, however, the main reason that Coppola was constantly battling the unknown was the state of mind of his two key actors, Marlon Brando, and Martin Sheen. The issues with Brando arose much later in the shoot, given that he only appeared towards the end of the film. He arrived for the shoot vastly overweight, heavily addicted to cocaine, and unable to memorize a single line. Sheen, however, was of course required for the opening sequence, in which we see Willard experiencing an intense mental crisis.
Sadly, if somewhat artistically, Sheen himself was at that time suffering just as much as Willard. And yet, Sheen was finding that he was completely unable to connect with the character. He had previously said to Coppola, “I don’t know who this guy is, who is this Willard?” According to Sheen, Coppola looked at him and said, “he’s you. Whoever you are, whatever we’re filming at the time.” Sheen continued to struggle desperately – as an actor, and as a person.
Then, one night, Coppola had a dream about the filming of this first scene. In the dream, he was in the hotel room with Sheen and a Green Beret advisor. The advisor told Coppola that the Green Berets were vain – that they would stand in front of the mirror and admire their hair, their mouths. Coppola had Sheen do this in the dream, and when Sheen turned back to look at him, Coppola finally saw Willard in Sheen’s face. For Coppola, this approach was going to mark the turning point in the relationship between Sheen and Willard.
They shot the opening scene in the dim Saigon hotel room on 3rd August, 1976. Sheen was, in his words, “so drunk, I couldn’t stand up.” It was his 36th birthday.
With Sheen stumbling around in his underwear, unsure of either himself or his role, Coppola deployed his dream-derived secret weapon, and told Martin to go and look in the mirror. His exact words are more than just slightly creepy: “Marty, go and look at yourself in the mirror. I want you to look at how beautiful you are….your mouth and your hair…you look like a movie star.” Coppola then darkens the tone. “Now frighten yourself, Marty,” he says, to the sweating, swaying Sheen.
This is the point at which Sheen/Willard punches through the mirror, although actually shattering it was an accident. In his inebriated state, Sheen wasn’t aware of how close the mirror really was. Despite the fact that Coppola was apparently concerned for his own safety in the face of this desperate man, he now stepped in to rescue the situation – Sheen had lacerated his thumb and was bleeding badly. But Sheen refused. He demanded that the cameras were kept rolling, and it is for that reason that we see Willard finally bleeding and weeping, naked on the floor by his bed.
This particular behind the scenes account is nothing short of harrowing. While Coppola was attempting to elicit the right character performance, it is actually Sheen’s own breakdown that we are witnessing. The footage of this scene being filmed is as painful and as traumatic as the film itself, if not more so. Coppola may have found the inspiration for the opening of his movie at the bottom of a garbage bin, but in the end – for better or worse – he presented to the world one of the rawest and most genuine onscreen performances of the last forty years.
Martin Sheen later said of this scene that at the time, he pretended he couldn’t remember a lot of the things he had done that day. “But actually,” he says, “…I remember it all.”